Effective Date: November 20, 2024
1. Introduction to Our Cookie Policy
Welcome to the Sustainable Food Center’s website. As a leading food center dedicated to building a healthy food future, we are committed to transparency and protecting your privacy. This Cookie Policy is designed to explain in detail how we utilize cookies and similar tracking technologies on our website, https://sustainablefoodcenter.org/ (the “Site”). By continuing to use our Site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies as described in this policy. We encourage you to read this policy carefully to understand how it affects your browsing experience and privacy while you explore the resources and information offered by our food center.
2. Understanding What Cookies Are
Cookies are small text files that are downloaded to your device – whether it’s a computer, tablet, or smartphone – when you visit a website. They are essential tools for making websites work more efficiently and effectively. Cookies perform various functions, including remembering your actions and preferences (such as login details, language preferences, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another. There are two main types of cookies:
- Session cookies: These are temporary cookies that are erased when you close your browser. They help the website recognize you during a single browsing session.
- Persistent cookies: These cookies remain on your device for a longer period, as specified in the cookie. Persistent cookies are activated every time you visit the website that created that particular cookie.
3. Types of Cookies Used by Our Food Center Website
To ensure our website provides you with the best possible experience and to support our mission as a food center, we use several categories of cookies:
- Essential Cookies: These cookies are crucial for the operation of our Site, enabling core functionalities such as security, network management, and accessibility. They are necessary for you to navigate the Site and use its essential features, such as accessing secure areas and contributing to our food center initiatives online. Without these cookies, our website cannot function correctly.
- Performance Cookies: These cookies gather anonymous information about how visitors use our Site. They help us understand which pages are most and least popular, how visitors move around the website, and if they encounter any error messages. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. We use this data to improve the performance and functionality of our Site, ensuring it effectively serves as a resource for our food center community.
- Functional Cookies: These cookies enable our Site to remember choices you make (such as your language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personalized features. For instance, functional cookies are used to remember your preferences for future visits, allowing us to deliver content tailored to your interests in sustainable food and food center activities.
- Advertising Cookies: These cookies are utilized to display advertisements that are more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organizations such as advertisers.
- Analytics Cookies: We use analytics cookies to collect information about your interaction with our Site, including how often you visit, what pages you view, and how long you spend on our Site. This helps us analyze user behavior and trends to improve our Site and better understand the needs of our food center users. We may use third-party analytics providers like Google Analytics to help with this analysis.
4. Third-Party Cookies and Our Partners
It’s important to note that, in addition to our own cookies, we may also employ third-party cookies. These cookies are set by domains other than our website and are used by our partners to provide various functionalities. For example, we may use third-party cookies for:
- Website analytics: As mentioned, we may use services like Google Analytics, which sets cookies to help us understand and improve the usage of our Site.
- Advertising: Third-party advertisers or ad networks may place cookies to deliver targeted advertising as described above.
- Social media integration: If we integrate social media features, these platforms may set cookies to allow you to share content or for other purposes.
These third parties operate under their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to review their policies to understand their practices regarding cookies and your information.
5. Managing Your Cookie Preferences
You have the power to control and manage cookies. Most web browsers allow you to manage cookies through their settings. You can typically find these settings in the “options” or “preferences” menu of your browser. Through these settings, you can:
- Block all cookies: You can set your browser to refuse all cookies. However, this may mean that some parts of our Site and many other websites will not function correctly.
- Accept only certain cookies: You can configure your browser to accept only first-party cookies (cookies set by our website) or to accept only certain categories of cookies.
- Delete cookies: You can delete cookies that have already been placed on your device.
Please be aware that disabling cookies may impact the functionality and user experience of our Site. For example, if you block essential cookies, you may not be able to access certain parts of our Site or use all of its features effectively.
For detailed instructions on how to manage cookies in popular web browsers, you can refer to the following resources: (Please insert specific links to browser cookie management instructions here, e.g., for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge).
6. Updates to This Cookie Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy periodically to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. When we make changes, we will revise the “Effective Date” at the top of this policy. We encourage you to review this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies. Your continued use of our Site after any changes to this Cookie Policy signifies your acceptance of the updated policy.
7. Contact Information
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Cookie Policy or our use of cookies, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are committed to addressing your inquiries and ensuring your understanding of our practices.
Sustainable Food Center
2921 E 17th St
Austin, TX 78702
Thank you for visiting the Sustainable Food Center website and for taking the time to understand our Cookie Policy. We appreciate your trust and are dedicated to protecting your privacy while providing valuable resources and information related to our food center and sustainable food practices.
